API Deployment

Django Settings Best Practices

Managing Django Settings: Issues

• Different environments: during the project life, it will meet multiple environments, each one with its own configuration and settings.
• Sensitive data
• Sharing settings between team members: some team members may have problems configuring their settings
• Django settings are a Python code

Approaches of handling settings

1. using settings_local.py

   This file is automatically ignored by VCS (version control system).

   Pros:

   Secrets not in VCS.

   Cons:

   settings_local.py is not in VCS, so you can lose some of your Django environment settings.

   The Django settings file is a Python code, so settings_local.py can have some non-obvious logic.

   You need to have settings_local.example (in VCS) to share the default configurations for developers.

2. Separate settings file for each environment

   Here you will define a settings file for each environment, and use the file when it is needed using python manage.py runserver --settings = file name

   Pros:

   All environments are in VCS.

   It’s easy to share settings between developers.

   Cons:

   You need to find a way to handle secret passwords and tokens.

   “Inheritance” of settings can be hard to trace and maintain.

3. Environment variables

   Using os.environ to store sensitive data

   Pros:

   Configuration is separated from code.

   Environment parity – you have the same code for all environments.

   No inheritance in settings, and cleaner and more consistent code.

   There is a theoretical grounding for using environment variables – 12 Factors.

   Cons:

   You need to handle sharing default config between developers.

   And other approachs which can be found here

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